


3AM Runaway

by flowercrowncurls



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: 18 Year Old Calum, 20 year old Ashton, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Underage Relationship(s), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 02:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4987027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowercrowncurls/pseuds/flowercrowncurls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Running away isn't always easy, but sometimes it's right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	3AM Runaway

Calum’s just barely 18, it's 3:15AM on a Wednesday and he should be sleeping. But instead he is sneaking out his bedroom window, staring down at the ground from the second story that suddenly feels more like 5 stories up. He tries to keep himself quiet as he climbs out, shuffling across the garage roof, his backpack hanging loosely from his shoulder as he contemplates how he’s going to make it down to the ground without breaking something, more than likely his neck. He kicks his feet out, backpack falling to the ground as he all but throws himself from the roof, he feels suspended in air for half a second before the ground is rushing up to meet him and it knocks the air from his lungs when he collides with the solid earth.

It takes him a few long moments to get himself together before he's trampling through his mother’s rose bushes in the darkness, the thorns catch on his clothing and he takes a second to frown at the plant he’s just stepped through before he's sprinting towards the road telling himself he’s better off not looking back. He shifts uneasily, eyeing up and down the street, fingers curling into his sweatshirt as he rocks on his heels. He’s left behind nothing but a note addressed to his parents sealed with an I love him as explantation for something he knows his parents don’t really understand and maybe never will. It feels scary, what he’s doing - essentially running away from home - yet it feels so right he has no real doubts or regrets, no real worries.

And he hopes that his lacking words will offer them enough to make it hurt a little bit less when they find his empty bed, he tries to tell himself maybe they won’t cry despite the fact he knows the truth, he knows how deeply his actions are going to cut right through them, but he can’t stop now, he won’t. There are just somethings he’s not willing to give into, give up - and there is someone at the top of his list.

So he finds himself only half caring about what they may or may not feel because the love that fills his heart is overwhelming and consuming and it’s everything he’s wanted for as long as he can remember. He tries to think of life in terms of before Ashton but all he comes up with is this empty blank space where nothing rests, he can’t remember anything from before the older boy came into his life and all but swept him right off his feet without even trying.

Ashton is a string of letters stained across his collarbone in dark ink. The freedom that’s been sitting on the tip of his tongue but just a little out of reach for years. He’s somehow both sunshine and moonlight. He’s all the constellations that fill the skies - stars bursting and waves crashing and the sun rising. Ashton is a lazy morning in bed, a perfect cup of tea, too much sugar in his coffee, a strong shoulder when the tears won’t stop. Ashton has always been steady soft hands even when angry fists had bruised his own skin and a broad back when hurtful words were slurred their way. He’s strong muscles and gentle heart and dimpled smile and honest eyes.

The older boy is everything and Calum is willing to give up anything to have him, to keep him - for as long as the older boy is willing to have him.

Calum’s lost somewhere in the spaces between memory and reality and dream, laughing towards the sky basked in moonlight that paints his shadow across the street when Ashton pulls up to the curb. He’s still laughing as he launches himself into the arms of the boy he loves with everything he’s got, curling into the strong arms that curl tight enough to leave bruises on his waist.

Then Calum’s feet are leaving the ground, giggle escaping from the back of his throat as delight paints a shade of red across his skin, mouth cracking into a wide smile as he presses wet kisses against the cut of Ashton’s jaw. Laughing through the love that fills him up as Ashton nuzzles his nose against the cold of Calum’s cheek.

There are butterflies in his stomach and a melody of ashtonashtonashton is playing in his heart.

“Ash,” Calum breathes, tucking his face into the curve of the older boy’s neck. And just like every time before it still feels just like coming home.

“Hey babe.” Ashton holds him close for a moment that drags on. “In the car with you.” Calum stumbles around the car, throwing his bag into the backseat as he folds himself into the passenger seat. “That’s all you brought.” It’s more statement then question, like he’d known all along that Calum would be bringing barely anything with him.

Calum watches Ashton for a moment; the way his mouth tilts down into a frown, eyes narrowing and forehead creasing with worry that wrinkles the skin there. He reaches across the space between them, that suddenly feels much too far, brushing soft fingers over the curve of his jaw and drawing Ashton’s attention away from his backpack and up towards him. Ashton’s eyes are wide and open and loud in the silence of the car, hazel so bright it shifts between blues and greens and golds and Calum is captivated all over again, falling more in love with this boy with every single second that passes.

“You’re all I need.” Calum says, breathes out the words like they are the truthest thing he’s ever known. And maybe they are. Ashton flushes, hides the red of his cheeks in the collar of his button down as he punches the car into gear and pulls away, leaving behind a life that was well enough but never great. A life that somehow had been fair and unfair to them in the same breath, a life that had been tragedy and romance and something out of a dramatic teenage movie. Two abused hearts finding their home in one another, and it’s cliched enough to hurt every time Calum allows himself to think of it, think of them, think of their story.

“You’re all I want.” Ashton breathes in return, when his heart has stopped threatening to pound right of his chest and his fingers are steady where they’re curled around the steering wheel, knuckles a little white from the too tight grip he has. He sounds breathless still and it soothes Calum in a way he’s never been able to explain, how strong yet vulnerable Ashton always been - Solid as a rock yet delicate as a flower.

“Forever.”

“For Always.” Ashton’s voice is more steady, more sure. And the honest the drips there, between his teeth and lips, splashes against Calum and every doubt that had still been lingering in the dark places of him mind suddenly elaborate in the blinding light that is the love he feels for the older boy.

Calum falls asleep sometime between the 6AM sunrise and Ashton’s fingers curling around the back of his neck, warm and strong and soft. He wakes to seagulls and midday heat and the smell of salt in the air. He blinks, vision blurring from the too bright light, until slowly crashing waves and miles of sand comes into focus. Ashton is gone but Calum has always had a knack for seeing all the traces he leaves behind; his window is rolled down, button up thrown over his seat, wallet lying in the console at his hip. The car is parked near a string of palm trees that catches Calum’s focus and he stares at them for a few moments, the haze of sleep slowly fading away.

Calum stumbles out, legs stiff and hips achy, stretching this and that way before he wanders towards the water. The sun feels too hot, too heavy on his covered shoulders but he ignores it in favor of finding the older boy. He frowns when he sees nothing but open, empty space for miles - there’s no one, nothing, but the sea and the sky and the sand. Calum feels those hopefully sprouts of freedom blooming up from the center of his heart. He feels weightless, like a feather drifting in the breeze no where to land, no home to call it’s own.

There’s a sense of fear that bubbles along the surface of his skin, choking tension around his neck and a pounding beat radiating from directly behind his eyes.

“Hey Sleeping Beauty.” Calum startles, limbs tensing and settling in a matter of seconds as Ashton wraps around him, all long limbs and subtle strength as his fingers curl over Calum’s ribs and hold. Calum feels like Ashton is holding him together, aligning every piece of him to it’s rightful place and just holding tightly to keep him from blowing away in the wind. He settles, calms, breathes.

“Hey. Time’s it?”

“Around 2.”

“Didn’t sleep that long,” Calum frowns, fingers poking at the dimple that dents Ashton’s cheek as he smiles.

“Seemed like a lifetime.” His voice is soft, the words meant to be teasing but there’s something a little too hardened around the edges of the words that has Calum frowning, spreading his own fingers to press them tightly over Ashton’s before he’s turning and looking up at the older boy, that same hardness is around the corners of Ashton’s eyes as well and it makes Calum nervous, worried, anxious in a way he does not understand entirely.

“Did -“ Calum starts, shifts the words around in his mouth before he decides to swallow them down instead of setting them free, but from the way Ashton’s face falls slightly the older boy knows the words anyways.

“Yeah,” Ashton shifts away, hands pulling back to rub at the back of his neck and over the space of his mouth. For a moment he looks anything but his 20 years, so much younger, so fragile in the glow of the sun, his curls a wild mess poking out from beneath his hat. “I didn’t answer. I don’t know what more to say.”

“You’ve said all you could,” Calum moves into his space, refusing to let Ashton put distance between them - not now, not after all the work they’ve done to get here, to get away. Not after all that Ashton had gone through, kept going through for two more years, just to wait for Calum. “I’m not sure more words would make much of a difference either.”

Ashton shrugs, shifts like he’s going to pull away but he stops when Calum’s hands tighten where they’re curled around his biceps. He shakes his head, eyes unfocused for a moment before he’s looking at Calum and his eyes are open, so so open that Calum thinks he can read every single thought, word, emotion that is currently tumbling through the older boy’s head. But he doesn’t read them, because he has his own set of unspoken words to share, so he presses forward - mouth to mouth, chest to chest, nose to nose and he breathes out his own secrets.

He pushes into Ashton’s space and wraps around the older boy, licks into his mouth and hums at the warmth there, the soft heat of his mouth, the strong slip of his tongue as it brushes against his own. Calum gets lost in it, in Ashton, in pouring every single thought, every single emotion into the older boy.

He’s not sure if he succeeds, but Ashton’s smile is soft and his eyes are dark when they pull away. And it takes him a moment, but then he’s leaning forward and pressing one more soft, barely there kiss to Calum’s mouth before he’s brushing his hand over Calum’s cheek.

“I love you,” Ashton whispers with the wind and Calum feels it all the way down in his bones.

“I love you too, Ash.” Calum returns, and it’s as easy as breathing - loving Ashton. And Calum wants to continue doing it forever.


End file.
